Tokio Kitchen is a Japanese food restaurant with food court concept, which is located on the second floor of Central Park Mall, connected to Urban Kitchen, the main food court of the mall. Once you step in, you can immediately feel the nice, warm ambiance of Japanese-style interior, and the place is so damn huge and spacious. Separated into so many areas with each different styles, the place surely is a good option whenever you go with larger crowds.
In Tokio Kitchen, there are many wall decorations such as posters or photos from ancient Japanese artworks as well as movie posters like Godzilla and also some old advertisements posters, lovely! The most interesting thing is actually the food court system, where we can choose what we want to eat and all the stands are categorized nicely. When we enter the place, we’ll be given an electronic card for each person, which we’ll use to order the food and drinks inside.
There are many food stands available, such as sushi, okonomiyaki/takoyaki, donburi, ramen/udon, and some popular Japanese dishes. We didn’t order much because honestly I wasn’t really attracted by anything. I visited the place during dinner time on a weekday, and the restaurant was almost empty, even some of the stands looked so sad and unoccupied. I really had no idea what to order, but eventually I made decision just based on intuition. #eeaa
Hiroshima Okonomiyaki IDR 45K
The so-called Hiroshima Okonomiyaki actually wasn’t exactly wrong because it was indeed made in layers and that is the true style of Hiroshima ones, so bingo! The noodle was nice and generously seasoned, making it too wet and tasty, imho. In bigger picture, this wasn’t bad at all, just lacking of something, most probably because it wasn’t exactly well-combined, made the whole round not too impressive. But I think you can at least get the idea of Hiroshima okonomiyaki there.
Spicy Curry Karaage IDR 42K
Had a sudden urge to eat some curry so I ordered it. The karaage was okay, although it was far from authentic ones (no taste/smell of ginger at all), and cut in small bites. The curry was alright, had right thickness and I loved the color and smell.
Original Pizza IDR 46K
I was told that one of Tokio Kitchen‘s specialties is their pizza, so I thought I had to try by myself, and that time I ordered the Original one. I had high expectation on this but unfortunately, I must say that the pizza was one of the worst pizzas I have ever eaten in any restaurants. The dough had this unpleasant frozen smell like it had been put in the freezer for a long time, and although I believe it was supposed to be thin crust, it was relatively thick and not crispy at all. The sauce was terribly sweet like it was made from instant tomato sauce. The topping was spread thinly and even the beef pepperoni looked so sad, thin and not appealing at all. In short, it tasted like a first-attempt homemade pizza gone bad, so can you imagine how bad it is?
Those were all I tried during my visit that time and I admit I was barely impressed by the food they serve. Didn’t try the sushi because nothing looked appealing and the stands were totally unoccupied by any staff at that moment. After we finish eating, we are supposed to pay whatever we order in the small cashier desk near the colorful van as shown on the picture below. I think system-wise, the place is cool, but will I come back? Probably not, at least not for the food.
All prices are subject to 5% service charge & 10% government tax
* The Food Escape team are not paid whatsoever for writing this post.
Central Park Mall L2-202A
Jl. Let. Jend. S. Parman Kav. 28
Jakarta Barat 11470
Tokio Kitchen, Central Park, Jakarta is a nice place to enjoy the Japanese food. I also have a great experience of this place about a month ago after my Boston NY bus tour with my friends. It is a nice place to enjoy the atmosphere like in Japan. In this restaurant the tables were also designed with Japanese style. I really enjoyed yummy noodles, with jelly nori and boiled eggs at this restaurant.